Thanks Carl for your insight.
Your knowledge of all aspects of ancient/hellenistic Greek is
breath-taking!
Andrew S. Kulikovsky B.App.Sc(Hons) MACS
Software Engineer
CelsiusTech Australia
Module 6 Endeavor House
Technology Park
Adelaide Australia 5095
Ph: +618 8343 3837
Fax: +618 8343 3777
email: anku@celsiustech.com.au
Some people are so narrow-minded,
they can see through a key hole with both eyes
Others are so open-minded
their brain has fallen out.
> ----------
> From: Carl W. Conrad[SMTP:cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 1997 12:57 PM
> To: Andrew Kulikovsky
> Cc: 'b-greek@virginia.edu'
> Subject: Re: meaning EAN
>
> At 10:41 PM -0400 5/19/97, Andrew Kulikovsky wrote:
> >Filloi,
> >
> >While reading in 1 John last night I came across EAN in 1 John 2:28
> which
> >the NIV translates as "when". I was confused by this because EAN is
> made
> >up of EI + AN and AN makes a definite statement contingent, yet the
> >context and translation as "when" seems to indicate certainty...
> >
> >I checked Louw & Nida and BAGD and sure enough "when" is given as a
> >possible meaning. But this goes against the indefiniteness introduced
> by
> >AN (EAN).
> >
> >Am I missing something here? I don't understand.
>
> What is needed here is a bit of perspective of the sort gained from
> awareness of the history of the language and the transformations it
> has
> gone through from the Homeric and Classical Attic to the many
> varieties of
> Koiné. Just as the hINA clauses have expanded beyond the original
> adverbial
> purpose function to encompass quite a variety of substantive clauses
> in
> Koiné, so EAN clauses have expanded beyond their original base as
> protasis
> of general and vivid future conditions. For one thing, many users of
> EAN
> are not even conscious of its original inclusion of an EI; in effect
> EAN
> has become a marker for subjunctive clauses in all kinds of
> conditions: EAN
> + subj. = hOTAN + subj. = EAN TIS + subj. = hOSTIS AN + subj.--or you
> may
> find a hOS EAN. In short, "if-ever" comes to be equivalent to
> "whenever"
> and "whoever" when the clause is the apodosis of a condition calling
> for a
> subjunctive. Sometimes you'll find the "when" or "who" expressed, but
> it
> does occasinally happen that EAN simply by marking a conditional
> apodosis
> IMPLIES the temporal or relative element appropriate in the context.
> So
> it's not really that "when" is the meaning of EAN but rather that one
> must
> read the context carefully to determine the best way to convey EAN +
> subj.
> in any particular instance.
>
> It strikes me that Latin CUM + subjunctive clauses are very much like
> Koiné
> EAN + subjunctive clauses: CUM marks dependency in a subjunctive
> clause in
> Latin, and one must determine from context whether in a given instance
> it
> should be understood as "when," "since," or "although." I don't mean
> to
> say that EAN functions just as does CUM but rather that as a particle
> of
> subordination it can assume a variety of functions, just as EAN can.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University
> One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
> (314) 935-4018
> cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
> WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
>
>